This has been quite the slow communication year for the Type Bar. We started in Nikko, Tochigi, Japan and ended up Plate Tokyo in Minato-ku. With Boston, New York, Maine, South Carolina, Washington DC and Wisconsin in between. Type Bar guests typed over 650 letters at our events. We mailed simple communications to every state in the U.S. and to over 40 countries. In addition we received an unexpected response of three letters (!) from the Gentlemen of Chance spiritual bureaucracy project.

Super special thanks are in order for all the people that chip in to create these all-volunteer events and spread the reach of slow communication! It’s everyone’s creativity that makes these things great. You know who you are, so thank you! It is the habit of the Type Bar to give this letter writing service for free. Volunteers and these awesome organizations helped to make it possible. Thank you to the Awesome Foundation for your cash grant and to the Fenway Community Center for the generous donation of new stationery and stamps! Also thanks to Museum of Fine Arts Boston for inviting us to two of the MFA overnights. Also so appreciate the goodwill and support of Tom at Cambridge Typewriter. He came through all year long helping me understand the machines, repair them. And helped us get the most beautiful machines for the bar. Thanks for bringing the Type Bar to so many guests.

Vintage stamps need to be hand cancelled. The final step in the art of slow communication.

For 2017 we will be honing in our observation and typing skills. Already in January (25) we host Japanese stationery appreciation where we will look at line spacing and margins to set up a perfectly placed message. Type Bar will host a Living Room at the Isabella Stewart Gardner in Boston (Jan 28). The idea behind the Living Room series is for the ISG to host an artist’s collection. So we will have several of the best typewriters and an assortment of stationery and vintage stamps on hand for discussion and enjoyment. In February we will use a late winter meditation for our theme back at Fenway Community and try our hands at a guided observation and typing activity.